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East Grand Forks City Council members are zeroing in on when and how the public could vote on a proposed sales tax that would fund a swimming pool renovation project. At a Tuesday night work session, the consensus seemed to be the city should hold the vote prior to the Minnesota State Legislature reconvening on March 8.

The Minnesota legislative session doesn't resume until March, but two DFL party leaders are making rounds this week in the state's northwestern corner looking for public feedback. Rep. Paul Marquart, D-Dilworth, called the previous session a "missed opportunity" for economic development in the state's rural areas. "There was expected to be this great focus on Greater Minnesota ... and so there were all these great expectations, but in the end, there was great disappointment," he said. Marquart, a deputy minority leader, and Minority Leader Rep.

Sarah Sebenaler's daily commute is about to get busier. She and her husband found out this past December they will be welcoming another child into their family and promptly told their current day care provider. "I told my day care when I was five weeks pregnant I was going to need another infant spot," she said.

A recent audit of the city East Grand Forks' finances revealed no major problems. A comprehensive annual financial report for 2014 prepared by Brady, Martz & Associates was presented to the City Council and city department heads with just a few trouble spots noted. "We did not have any difficulties in performing the audit," said Janelle Mulroy, a certified public accountant with the firm.

A Grand Forks judge set bond at $25,000 Friday for a UND department chairman charged with 10 felony counts of possessing child pornography. Assistant State's Attorney Thomas Gehrz had recommended bond be set at $150,000 for Robert William Beattie, 55, who was arrested Thursday in his office at the UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences.

A major construction project slated to start this summer at the Grand Sky unmanned aircraft business park hit a snag this week that may have crews racing to beat the winter freeze. Construction involves reconnecting a taxiway from tenant's hangars to the nearby Grand Fork Air Base runway, but the project's sole bid, which was rejected by Grand Sky President Tom Swoyer Jr. on Thursday, stated work could not start until next year. Grand Sky Development Co.

It's been three months since Shutter Pilots received the green light to fly unmanned aircraft commercially, and founder Mike Mabin said interest in the aerial photography company's services is growing. Shutter Pilots uses footage recorded from an unmanned aircraft and creates a virtual environment using the collected imagery and 3-D renderings of structures. "We've been visiting with engineering firms and there's a lot of interest in creating virtual environments for projects that are going to be constructed—for example a high school, mall and church," Mabin said. Aerial photography a

An area once full of garbage may be reborn as a park in East Grand Forks. When the park could be developed is up in the air, but the possibilities for the city's old landfill site and surrounding area were illustrated and presented to the East Grand Forks City Council recently. Ryan Hermes, a landscape architectural intern with Widseth Smith Nolting in Grand Forks, was tapped to create concepts for the 40-acre plot of land that would entice residents to travel to it. "That's kind of a challenge when you have a park a little bit further out of town — how do you bring people there?" Her